


Beginning

by raz0rgirl



Category: Better Luck Tomorrow (2002), Fast Five (2011)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 20:41:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7728997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raz0rgirl/pseuds/raz0rgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between opening the safe and driving on the Autobahn, Han & Gisele get to know each other better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [formerlydf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/formerlydf/gifts).



> This picks up after they open the safe in _Fast Five_. It includes minor references to _Better Luck Tomorrow_ , but you don't have to have seen it to follow.

They don’t leave Brazil right away. The high of the cracked safe and the money doesn’t change the fact that their identities are all burned. They know Hobbs is a man of his word, and they only have 24 hours until he’s fully after them again. And Reyes being dead only means there’s a power vacuum to fill. Taking them all down would be the kind of show of power someone looking to replace Reyes would want to make. They need documents to travel, but they also need to get out of sight.

Gisele agrees to stay long enough to work her contacts to help everyone get IDs. 

“We need to split up,” she says as the group all makes arrangements to stay in contact as they go to ground. 

Han goes with her when she leaves the warehouse.

“Go out with me,” Han asks as they stand by a pay phone waiting for one of Gisele’s connections who’s good with forged documents to return her call.

“We’re out now,” she says. She’s flirting with him, and it makes Han smile.

He moves into her space, slides his hand onto her waist, and speaks low and slow into her ear. “Let’s me take you to dinner.”

They’ve been feeling each other out for what feels like weeks. Their attraction is undeniable, but this is the first time he’s touched her like this. The touch is a promise she wants to know how he’ll keep. 

***

The cafe serves them a simple, yet lovely dinner. The wine is good, and the food tastes of skill and joy. Han only has eyes for her throughout, though, and Gisele finds that she likes it. She likes the feeling of his eyes on her. Never a leer. It’s not even appraising. Just—an appreciation and a desire that she returns.

“Tell me something about you I don’t know,” she says.

It takes him a while to answer, and she waits him out until he says, “I used to be an asshole.”

It’s not at all anything she expected to hear or anything he expected to say.

“What do you mean?” she asks. 

“I was an aggressive jerk when I was younger.”

“I can’t imagine that,” she says. Then, “What changed?”

“I got tired of a lot of things and decided to grow up.”

There’s obviously more to the story, and Gisele gets the sense that Han is trying to tell her something more than what he’s saying.

“You can’t quit being an asshole like you can quit smoking,” she says. “There has to be more to the story.”

“There is,” he says, “but you’d be surprised. Quitting smoking was harder.”

Han doesn’t know why he said what he did, but it’s out there. He wants to tell Gisele so much—wants her to know the worst things about him and still want to be with him. The feeling overwhelms him. He starts to tell her about Virgil, but finds himself asking her how she met Dom instead, since he’s the thing they somehow have in common.

“We were both caught up in a bad situation, and he saved my life,” she said. “I may have thrown myself at him. Letty had just died, though, and he didn’t have eyes for anyone else.”

It still hurts that Letty’s gone, so he doesn’t voice what he’s thinking. It would be wrong to say he’s happy Dom didn’t return her advances even though it’s true.

“Did you know her?” she asks.

“Yes,” he says. “They were incredible together.”

“How did you know them?”

“So when I said I used to be an asshole when I was younger, I mean high school young,” he says. “My friends and I tried to play gangster, and it got away from us. When things went bad, people got hurt, and I had to get out of there. I had to get away from a lifetime of things I didn’t want.”

Gisele takes his hand in hers, and he raises her hand to kiss it, then continues. “If you’re going to choose a life of crime, you might as well fall in with people who know what they’re doing. And there are worse things than Dom’s Robin Hood act. I met him. We did some jobs together. He invited me to Brazil for a big one, and the rest is history.”

It hits him how short the time has been that he’s known her and how he already can’t imagine his life without her. He now knows what people mean when they say that they feel as if they’ve known someone forever. Feels as if he understands something about Dom and Letty and the kinds of relationships that get described as meant to be.

She’s only known him a short while, but she realizes she wants him to understand who she is and where she came from. Wants to know the same about him.

***

After dinner, they walk. Gisele grabs Han’s hand and pulls him along the street, walking faster with each step.

“Where are we going?” Han asks.

“Finding us a place for the night,” she says. She looks back for long enough to catch his grin, then continues to walk with purpose.

They find a boutique hotel just as the sun sets. Gisele is polite and smiles as she listens to the proprietor’s pitch about the things to do in the neighborhood. It’s all she can do not to dash to their room when she’s finally handed the keys, and the woman asks if there’s any luggage her husband can bring up for them. Gisele declines as she grabs Han’s hand and they both walk at a polite speed until they’re out of the proprietor’s sight. Then it’s a run to their room and their hands on each other as soon as the door closes.

As they come together, it feels like the inevitable end of a journey they’ve been on since they first saw each other. 

***

Han wakes from a light doze. He’d been dreaming, but the details of the dream are rapidly fading from clear and vivid to a hazy feeling. He sees Gisele watching him from the balcony doors of their room, the light of the sunrise a halo behind her. 

“You were laughing while you slept,” she says. “What were you dreaming?”

“I’m not sure,” he says as he shakes his head slowly and sits up in the bed. “I know you were there, and I think…” he pauses and grins up at her. “I think you were dressed as Wonder Woman.”

Gisele lets out a startled laugh at that, and he smiles at her.

“You have to admit that it would suit you,” he says.

“What?” she asks. “Being a superhero, or the tiny skirt?”

“Both.”

She walks over to him.

“What’s something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t yet?” she asks as she sits beside him on the bed.

“Drive on the Autobahn,” he says after the moment.

She grins and says, “I think that can be arranged.”

“And you?” he asks as he brushes her hair behind her ear with his fingers.

“Travel with someone whose company I enjoy.”

“That’s a job I’d love to fill,” he says.

“I’ll consider it,” she replies, then moves in to kiss him.

When they come up for air, he says, “I want to stay with you. I don’t care where.”

Both of them have lived enough to recognize that something special is happening between them.

“Me too,” she says, and it feels like an inevitable beginning.


End file.
